News

A special issue of the journal Life — “Frontiers of Astrobiology” — is now open for submissions. Professor Manasvi Lingam serves as the Guest Editor, and the submission deadline is 3 July 2020. The objective of this special issue is to cover all realms of astrobiology, thus reflecting the inherent diversity of this field. Hence, all manner of papers are welcome — spanning both the physical and biological sciences, and ranging from experimental analyses to theoretical models — that are rigorous, comprehensive, and embody the latest developments in the field. In addition to regular...

The European Astrobiology Institute will organise a summer school: “Formation and evolution of planetary systems and habitable planets”. The summer school will be held on August 19-26, 2020 in the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. Its aims are: to introduce early career scientists to interdisciplinary work in planetary sciences, to introduce science journalists and science teachers to scientific work and scientists, to teach future scientists how to explain scientific concepts to general public and each other,...

Meeting Announcement The Biennial General Meeting of the Astrobiology Society of Britain will be held on Wednesday 4th March at 4pm. This meeting is open to all members of the society and can be attended remotely via Zoom (details of how to join the meeting will be emailed via the ASB mailing list shortly). Any items for discussion can be sent to the Secretary:...

15 new PhD positions in exoplanet and planet formation research are opening in a new joint European network Chameleon (http://chameleon.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/). Projects are available across a range of institutions within the Chameleon network with application deadlines of 3rd February 2020 for a September 2020 start. Detailed descriptions of the PhD projects on offer, along with application information, can be found here:...

ESA have extended the deadline and added a workshop to their call for ideas about the future of their biology research. The deadline for inputs is now 12 February 2020, and it will be followed by a workshop in ESTEC on the 26th-27th February 2020. Full details are here. Please consider providing input, this is your opportunity to shape ESA’s future work in this area. Call for Ideas: SciSpacE biology roadmaps evolution post 2024 and refinement of ESA’s Space Station biology research capabilities The SciSpacE research goals and specific objectives were defined with the research...

The registration for the first AbGradEPEC event in 2020 is now open. As already announced in autumn, there will be a joint symposium/workshop with the Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) Network. The event will take place in the days immediately before the first BEACON conference and will offer young scientists a smooth entry into the new European Astrobiology Institute (EAI). Both the AbGradEPEC event and BEACON itself will take place at the La Palma & Teneguia Princess Hotel on La Palma Island (Canary Islands, Spain). The preliminary program is: Thursday (16.4.2020) evening: Ice Breaker...